While the first IndyCar race of the year is still over a month away, teams are hard at work preparing for the season. On Monday, a handful of teams headed to Fontana, Calif. to test Auto Club Speedway.

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One of the significant topics of discussion during MotoGP testing last week was whether or not Ducati will be switching all of its premier class bikes to Open specification for the upcoming 2014 campaign.

The label ‘Open’ is new this year and is given to those bikes running the spec ECU software (as provided by Dorna Sports and Magneti Marelli) as well as the ECU hardware, which from this season onwards is compulsory for all bikes in the field.

Scott Redding gets on track for the GO&FUN Honda Gresini team at the 2014 Valencia test. (Photo: MotoGP.com)

Those riding the Honda RCV1000R need more time to get to grips with the new machine. That is the opinion of Shuhei Nakamoto, HRC executive vice president, who shared his opinion on the situation at the end of last week’s Sepang test.

There are four Honda RCV1000R bikes (originally dubbed the ‘Production Racer’) in the field this season. Two are run by Drive M7 Aspar, with Nicky Hayden and Hiroshi Aoyama at the helm, whereas others are piloted by GO&FUN Honda Gresini’s Scott Redding and Cardion AB Motoracing’s Karel Abraham.